


Lunch Break

by JustAnotherBlonde



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shop Owner, Food, M/M, Meet-Cute, Photographer!Sasori, Photography, SasoDei Week 2021, Shop Owner!Deidara, Social Media, Spicy Chilies, katsudon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29715096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherBlonde/pseuds/JustAnotherBlonde
Summary: SasoDei Week 2021 || February 26 || Shop Owner AUThe handsome redheaded customer was back.He sat on the stool at the end of the row, the seat furthest inside Deidara’s tiny restaurant. Well, restaurant was a stretch. Deidara was the proud proprietor of a rented ten-square meter space in the basement of a mall with four stools along a narrow bar and just enough space for all his kitchen equipment.
Relationships: Deidara/Sasori (Naruto)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 13
Collections: Multi-Sasori, SasoDei Week 2021





	Lunch Break

The handsome redheaded customer was back.

He sat on the stool at the end of the row, the seat furthest inside Deidara’s tiny restaurant. Well, restaurant was a stretch. Deidara was the proud proprietor of a rented ten-square meter space in the basement of a mall with four stools along a narrow bar and just enough space for all his kitchen equipment. It was the tail-end of the lunch rush, and all four seats were occupied.

Deidara tossed two pork cutlets into the deep fryer and sidled over to the redhead.

“ _Katsudon_?”

“Yes, please,” the redheaded customer politely replied. Brown eyes met Deidara’s blue ones. “It’s the only thing you serve.”

Deidara shrugged as he turned back to his fryer to check the cutlets. Almost done.

“You might just be here for my pretty face. How should I know, mn?”

Thin red eyebrows twitched upwards.

“You come by a lot, mn,” Deidara remarked as he lifted the fryer basket out of the vat and shook off the excess oil. There were two customers ahead of the redhead. He flipped their cutlets onto the chopping board, lowered one more cutlet into the fryer, then sliced the crispy, golden finished products with a steady hand. Next, the sauce: onions into the _katsudon_ pans, pour in the prepared sauce, let it simmer…

The redhead hadn’t replied. When Deidara turned, their eyes met again. The faintest blush of color rose on the redhead’s cheeks, but his expression did not change.

Deidara grinned: “You’re watching me work?”

The customer seated nearest the busy mall-side stood to leave. Deidara rushed over to ring up her bill, accept her payment, and clear away her empty bowl and chopsticks, then returned to his saucepans. Cutlets in, crack two eggs, pour over... Check the redhead’s cutlet. It was ready. Let the oil drain. Flip steaming rice into two bowls.

With a flourish, he tossed chopped parsley and spring onion over the pork-cutlets-and-egg, then slid this on top of the rice, one bowl, another bowl. He cocked his head as he studied his works of art. A glance over his shoulder at his two customers—an incredibly large and intimidating man with tiny eyes and spiky hair, and his slim, dark-haired and tired-looking friend, squinting at his phone—then added an extra splash of sauce to the big guy’s bowl and a sprinking of chopped red chili to the other one’s. Perfect.

“Here you are,” he announced as he placed the bowls in front of his customers. “Enjoy, mn.”

“Thanks,” the big guy rumbled.

Next, the redhead’s portion. He wanted to try something different this time. Minced garlic as well as onions in the sauce. While it simmered, he snuck a glance at his customer from behind his blond fringe.

Of course, his eyes had not left Deidara. A hot blush rose from Deidara’s neck to his forehead. He snapped his attention back to the sauce.

“You really should pull that hair back,” the redhead said. He sounded like he was smirking, but Deidara didn’t dare look. “Surely it’s against health-and-safety regs.”

“I’ve never served a single hair, mn.”

The sauce was ready. Now the cutlet, then an egg. No spring onions, just parsley as the garnish, and—

“If you’re going to add chili this time, put enough so I can actually taste it,” the redhead tsked.

Deidara spun. “I don’t take requests, man, mn.”

The redhead grinned. “Fine.”

Out of spite, Deidara dumped the whole dish of chilies on top of the cutlet, then rubbed it around with the back of a spoon.

“Here.”

The redhead leveled him with a very unimpressed look, biting the inside of his cheek as if there were words dying to escape his mouth. Then he blinked and extracted a pair of chopsticks from the container before him. Half-heartedly brushing the chilies aside, he picked up a strip of cutlet and began to eat, holding Deidara’s gaze.

“Delicious,” he said, deadpan.

Deidara crossed his arms in front of his stomach and laughed.

“Really?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

The redhead choked back a cough. His face was turning red. But he kept eating.

Knowing just how spicy those little red chilies were, Deidara poured his suffering customer a cup of green tea. The odd couple finished their meal. He tidied their spaces and rang them up, and by the time he’d returned to his victim, the chilies had somehow found their way into the emptied tea cup.

“You know why I keep coming back here?” the redhead remarked as he wiped his mouth on a tissue. Before Deidara could reply, he continued: “Because the first time I ate here, it was _divine_. Picture-perfect colors, brilliant green parsley, caramelized onions, golden panko… But my camera was in the shop that day. It would have made a _beautiful_ advertisement—you wouldn’t have had to _touch_ the food to get a good photo.”

Deidara swelled with pride. “Wow, that’s—”

“But that was only the first time,” the redhead cut him off impatiently. His brows knit together. “I came back the next day to get the photo, and it was a _disaster!_ You changed _everything._ You chopped the parsley differently. The onions were cubes, not strips—”

“So?”

The redhead waved his chopsticks in exasperation. “So there was nothing to photograph! And the flavor was completely different.” He took a bite of rice. “That’s the thing that I really can’t understand. You serve _one thing_. But every time I eat here, it tastes different.”

“That’s the beauty of it, babe,” Deidara smiled. “Food’s made to be enjoyed, but it’d be boring if it was always the same. Every bowl I make is a work of art, mn.”

The redhead shook his head. “I disagree.”

No new customers appeared: the lunch rush was over. Deidara knew he ought to get started washing up, but the redhead’s remark had piqued his curiosity, and _almost_ touched a nerve.

“What do you know about art, then? Are you an artist?” he asked, leaning over the countertop to get a closer look at the man. His clothing was stylish but understated: a designer? No, he had a high-quality DSLR camera slung over his thin back—

“I’m a photographer,” he replied, a fierce look in his brown eyes. “I specialize in still lifes, landscapes, abstracts… and food photography.”

Deidara’s eyes lit up. “Really? Like for menus? I’ve been—”

“You can’t afford me,” the redhead shot back.

“Uh,” Deidara scoffed, “I was just going to say I’ve been dabbling in food photography myself, but mostly just for my social media…”

“Yeah, I follow your account,” the redhead rolled his eyes.

Deidara paused. “Wait… WAIT. Are you _Scorpio Studios_? Sasori Akasuna, that’s the name on your profile, right? You’ve been giving me shit for _months_! Would it kill you to leave a positive comment, mn?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Sasori laughed. “But your photos _are_ terrible.” He set his chopsticks on top of his empty bowl. “I know you follow me, though. So you’ve seen my work.”

Deidara’s hand dove into his apron pocket for his phone. “Yeah, I followed you after you—god, that photo you took was so cool, the—” He waved his hand around his head, “—the food court with all the people moving through it, and you tagged my shop cuz it was in the background… mn.” He found the photo and waved his phone in front of Sasori’s face. “It’s so pretty! How did you make it look so good??”

Sasori smirked. He took the phone from Deidara’s hand and hovered a thin finger over the center of the image.

“It’s all about timing when you’re dealing with live subjects,” he said, taking a moment to look into Deidara’s eyes, check he was listening—he was. “I was standing there for two hours before I caught this. You want positive and negative space to be balanced, so you see here,” he indicated, “how there’s not one spot where this passerby's back is touching any other object in the image? This cleans the lines and allows her to become a more prominent subject.”

“So would the same principle apply for food?” Deidara asked, studying the image and looking for more examples of positive and negative space. He found plenty—the image was perfectly balanced, each person or object occupying its own space.

Sasori nodded. “When you arrange something like a bowl of _katsudon_ , you don’t have negative space per se, but you want to think about the symmetry and composition of the colors and items in the bowl.”

“Can I make one now and we try it, mn?”

This earned him a scowl. “I need to get back to my studio. I have a client meeting in half an hour.”

“And this will take longer than half an hour?” Deidara tried puppy-dog eyes, but he had a feeling Sasori would be immune.

“Yes.”

Sasori stood. Deidara’s heart sank, but he quickly recovered.

At the till, they stared at each other for a moment, Deidara with his hands on his hips, Sasori with his phone in his hand, ready to pay.

After a beat, Sasori spoke: “How much?”

“It’s on the house, mn,” Deidara replied coolly. Or at least, he tried to look cool. He felt nervous.

Red brows pinched together. How many times had Deidara seen that expression today?

“Why?”

“Maybe if I give you enough free lunches, you’ll pity me and photograph my menu, mn.”

Sasori crossed his arms and looked Deidara up and down. “Fine.” He turned to leave, paused, drew a breath, steeled himself, then turned back to face Deidara. “But let me pay for dinner tonight. Eight o’clock, the new Italian restaurant across the street.”

Deidara blinked. “Woah, hold on, are you asking me on a date? We literally just—”

Flushing bright pink, Sasori suddenly became very interested in his camera strap.

“S-sorry,” he stuttered, all of his confidence evaporated. “Maybe I misread… I’m—”

“Eight o’clock?” Deidara met Sasori’s eyes. “The new Italian restaurant?”

Looking mortified yet monumentally relieved, Sasori nodded. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Sorry if I seem forward, but I mean…” He gave Deidara a look that was part-embarrassed, part-mischievous. “It’s pretty obvious what your preferences are from your social media profiles.”

It was Deidara’s turn to blush. It was one thing to act like that on social media and dating apps, and something different altogether to get asked on a date by a handsome photographer he’d exchanged literally one single real-life conversation with.

“You caught me,” Deidara laughed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. Dropping his hand, he stared earnestly into Sasori’s eyes. “See you tonight, mn?”

Sasori smiled. “See you tonight.”

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know half as much about making katsudon or photography as i make it out to seem, but thanks for indulging me....😁  
> Dei (i) probably committed food crimes against katsudon and for that i’m sorry...  
> if you beg me in the comments i will 100% write you their first date as a sequel.


End file.
